Recent research has identified a callous and unemotional subtype of Conduct Disorder (CD) in adolescence that closely resembles adult conceptualizations of psychopathy. Accumulating evidence suggests that the affective and interpersonal impairments in Callous CD are measurable at an early age and may persist into adulthood. It is well known that the adult psychopath, relative to nonpsychopaths, is responsible for a disproportionate amount of social disruption, both civil and criminal. It is thus potentially important to develop a better understanding of the adolescent precursors to adult psychopathy. Recent electrophysiological and hemodynamic imaging studies completed by the primary investigator suggest that adult psychopathy is associated with neurocognitive abnormalities in the paralimbic system during performance of affective, error-monitoring, and salient stimulus processing tasks. The primary paralimbic structures that appear to be implicated include the amygdala, orbital frontal cortex, anterior superior temporal gyrus, and anterior and posterior cingulate. The purpose of the present proposal is to test the hypothesis that Callous CD in adolescence is associated with functional abnormalities in the paralimbic system. It is hypothesized that paralimbic dysfunction will characterize adolescents with Callous CD features and differentiate these youth from peers without such features. It is also hypothesized that Callous CD will be associated with alterations in the normal developmental trajectories associated with processing affective, salient, and error stimuli. High temporal resolution electrophysiological techniques and high spatial resolution hemodynamic imaging will be used to describe the functional neural architecture associated with affective, error-monitoring, and salient stimulus processing tasks in groups stratified by Callous CD scores. The ultimate aim of the proposed project is to obtain a more complete understanding of the brain systems implicated in CD adolescents characterized by high callousness, and secondarily, to begin to understand how the function of the paralimbic system relates to other disruptive disorders commonly diagnosed in adolescence. At the conclusion of the study, data will be available to characterize the functional neuroanatomy in youth with Callous CD to determine what, if any, neurocognitive patterns may contribute to the persistence of antisocial and """"""""psychopathic-like"""""""" features. The data also will delineate the relationships between the function of the paralimbic system and the symptom subtypes of Callous CD. ? ?
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